A Lenten Reflection for March 4, 2013

For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever. (Jeremiah 7:5-7)


People sometimes have a difficult time distinguishing between their religion and their nation. Nations, by design, operate out of self-interest. Religion typically has a different agenda.

I’ve heard people demand of the US what is demanded of Jesus’ followers. As much Christian influence as there continues to be here, the nation of America is not the people of God. That’s true of all nations.

But we who follow Jesus have, I think, a two-fold role in our respective countries. First, to serve as elders at the gate, so to speak, asking national leaders to act justly, wisely, and compassionately. It won’t do for us to simply embrace a preferred political agenda, baptize it as the Christian way, and then denounce all opponents. We must bring more to table than that.

Second, our role is to be the kind of people that God calls us to be. Regardless of the nation’s response to the alien, the orphan, the widow, and the innocent, we must care for them and not oppress them. Whether we are citizens of the US, the UK, China, or Venezuela, we are called first of all to be God’s people for the sake of the world. Our civic responsibility has to rise from that identity. If it happens the other way around, then we just might try to clothe Jesus in the garb of our political party.

I once heard Pastor Bill Hybels (of Willow Creek Church) say that he knows when he is in vital relationship with Christ, because that is when he has a heart for the poor. When he quits caring, then he realizes that something is amiss in his journey of faith. I’ve always appreciated that honesty, and have had to check my own heart along the way. When I quit caring for the people around me then something has gone wrong. When the poor and needy become abstract concepts or only shadowy presences at freeway offramps, then I need to look around and see where Jesus has gone. More to the point, I need to see where I have gone.

“Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.” (Psalm 80:7)

The Gods of Washington

I just returned from a five day visit to Washington, DC. It was my first time there, and I loved the city. My wife and I did the typical tours, and I was glad to do that, since my feet started hurting after the second day and the double-decker tour bus became a beloved oasis for us.

After wandering through the grounds of the Capitol building, the memorials, the museums, and other great sites, I wondered how a visitor from a distant planet might interpret the architecture, statues, and engraved quotes that can be found in DC. If our visitor had studied all the religions of planet earth prior to her visit, how would she describe the religious leanings of the US if the nation's capital was her first stop?

I think she would say that, indeed, this nation of America shows itself to be very religious. Many of the engraved quotations reference God. And the architecture and statuaries would suggest an honoring of God—or gods, to be precise. Our visitor might conclude, based on her observations, that America is grounded in the gods of the Greeks and Romans. Those are the most dominant religious symbols in our nation's capital.

The only suggestions of any Abrahamic religions that I saw were in the Holocaust museum.

Maybe if people want refer to the US as a "Christian nation," or at least one that was "Christian" at its inception, they should wander around the National Mall and process what they see. Maybe it would be more accurate to describe the founders of the nation as Enlightenment Progressives, informed and influenced by British Anglicanism. Or something like that.

Don't get me wrong: I don't mean to disparage the nation's beginnings. The people who got this whole enterprise going were amazing people (with regular human faults, to be sure), who shared a grand vision for a new kind of nation, and they risked everything they had to take the plunge into independence. But they were also people of their time, and the Enlightenment formed their thinking in a very significant way. The symbols that were, for the most part, constructed in the 19th century, offer testimony to that way of thinking.

We ought to be careful about tossing around the term "Christian" to characterize the nation (or anything else, for that matter). Christianity's influence and presence has certainly flourished here (not always in good ways), but "Christian" probably isn't a category to which the country might somehow return. A return to our beginnings would probably surprise most of us.